Living with chronic pain can disrupt your life and make it impossible for you to do your job, play with your kids, or remain independent. The good news is there are innovative new regenerative medicine treatments, many now available at Advanced Spine and Pain, that can help restore your quality of life — without major surgery. These treatments include:
- Platelet-rich plasma therapy
- Cell therapy
- Prolotherapy and Neural Prolotherapy
Regenerative medicine can help you alleviate chronic pain to reduce your reliance on pain medications. It can also help restore your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves without the need for a replacement procedure, helping you get back to enjoying an active, pain-free lifestyle.
Platelet-rich plasma therapy
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy is a procedure where your doctor withdraws your own blood and processes it in a centrifuge. The centrifuge separates the contents of your blood, concentrating the platelets from other cells, utilizing the ingredients in platelets to heal a degenerated structure.
Your doctor extracts the PRP from the sample and injects it into the area where degenerated or diseased joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves are located. PRP contains growth properties that triggers healing of the tissue it’s injected into. As we age, and/or with particular damaging movements, our body degenerates due to lack of blood flow to that area. PRP helps deliver blood flow to degenerated structures, and gives the desired solution to allow them to heal.
Pain relief isn’t immediate, and can take over a few months to feel the effects, by alleviating pain and reducing inflammation in the affected body part. PRP treatments can be very effective in treating acute and chronic pain caused by arthritis, osteoarthritis, and injuries.
Cell therapy
Cell therapy works much like PRP treatments, except that in addition to the PRP your doctor also extracts healing cells from your bone marrow or fat. These cells are also concentrated using a special machine, and your doctor can help you decide which is a better choice for your condition.
These healing cells are known for their ability to regenerate different types of tissue, including tendons, ligaments, bones, and cartilage. They also provide PRP with the Bone Marrow or Fat healing cells to improve your blood supply in the damaged structure to promote healing.
Prolotherapy and Neural Prolotherapy
Prolotherapy is a nonsurgical procedure your doctor may recommend to repair painful or injured joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves. When these tissues are injured or damaged, decreased blood flow causes these structures to degenerate. Joint pain often stems from stretched or torn connective tissues that cause the joint to become unstable. In prolotherapy, your doctor repairs the weakened tissues by injecting substances (often sugar alcohols), into the injured area. These solutions dehydrate tissues, reducing swelling in the area, and sending a signal to the brain that they are dehydrated and are in need of water and nutrition to survive. The brain responds by increasing blood flow to the area. Blood flow is important to allow injured or damaged tissues to heal correctly, since it has the integral cells and growth factors to stimulate healing.
The injection triggers your body to heal itself naturally, producing new collagen that repairs and strengthens the damaged connective tissue. Once the tendon or ligament tissue is repaired, joints become stable again and your pain resolves.
It can take several weeks to see optimal results from prolotherapy and neural prolotherapy. You may also need multiple treatments to achieve your joint pain relief goals. This procedure, however, is very safe and does not cause much pain.
What treatment is right for me?
Your Advanced Spine and Pain physician evaluates your acute or chronic pain condition, and prior medical history to determine which regenerative treatment option is best for you. Not all treatments may be effective in relieving your pain and the decision is influenced by several factors, including the nature of your condition, the location of your pain, and other underlying medical conditions.
Ideally, if you are exploring your options for permanent relief of acute or chronic pain without surgery, you should schedule an appointment with the knowledgeable physicians at Advanced Spine and Pain. Learning more about the benefits of regenerative medicine can help you make the most informed decision about your health.
]]>
